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Extended Virtues and the Boundaries of Persons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

ROBERT J. HOWELL
ROBERT J. HOWELL*
Affiliation:
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITYrhowell@smu.edu
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Abstract:

What sorts of things undergird a person's character and what does the answer tell us about the person's relationship to her body, her environment, and the people who surround her? For the purpose of ascribing virtue, vice, and character, what are the boundaries of the person? Traditionally, philosophers have accepted mentalism, the view that only mental features are relevant to character. Even philosophers inclined to say that character is partially constituted by nonmental features would be inclined to accept skindividualism: a person's virtue must involve a disposition that is wholly grounded by features inside the person's skin. Drawing from arguments in the philosophy of mind and data from social psychology, I argue that skindividualism is wrong. Virtues can be extended, in the sense that the grounds for a person's virtues might not be inside that individual's skin. If this is the case, persons are not skindividuals.

Keywords

ethicsmoral psychologyphilosophy of mindphilosophy of psychology
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 146 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016 

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